The Industrial Revolution has become all-out war! Mad Scientists, gifted with the Spark of genius, unleash insane inventions on an unprepared Europe. For centuries, the Heterodyne family of inventors kept the peace, but the last Heterodyne disappeared twenty years ago, leaving their ally Baron Klaus Wulfenbach to maintain order with his fleet of airships and army of unstoppable, if not very bright, Jaeger Monsters.

At Transylvania Polygnostic University, Agatha Clay dreams of being a scientist herself, but her trouble concentrating dooms her to be a lowly minion at best. When her locket, a family heirloom, is stolen, Agatha shows signs of having the Spark in a spectacular, destructive fashion and captures the attention of the Baron—and the Baron’s handsome young son, Gilgamesh.

Swept up to the Baron’s Airship City, Agatha finds herself in the midst of the greatest minds of her generation, as well as palace intrigue, dashing heroes, and an imperial cat. Agatha may be the most brilliant mind of her generation and the key to control of the continent, but first, she just has to survive.

The Battle of Blood and Ink has everything that draws people to the sub-genre: high flying adventure, led by a daring young woman, and of course, the power of the written word to take down corrupt government conspiracies.

Book Description:

If you’re visiting the flying city of Amperstam without the latest printing of The Lurker’s Guide, you might as well be lost. This one-sheet is written, edited, and printed by Ashe, a girl raised on the streets of the flying city, and is dedicated to revealing its hidden treasures and deepest secrets—including many that the overcontrolling government doesn’t want anyone to know. The stakes are raised when Ashe accidentally uncovers the horror of exactly how Amperstam travels among the skies and garners the attention of those who would rather that secret be kept in the hands of the city’s powerful leaders.

Soon Ashe is on the run from thugs and assassins, faced with the choice of imperiling her life just to keep publishing, or giving in to the suggestion of a rich patron that she trade in her voice and identity for a quiet, comfortable life. It’s a war of confusion for Ashe, but one thing is very clear: just because you live in a flying city, you can’t always keep your head in the clouds.

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For the academically-inclined or the subculturally-curious, two books that will spark your interest.

Vintage Tomorrows by James Carrott and Brian David Johnson first pinged on my radar with their documentary sponsored by Intel as part of the Tomorrow Project, which explores how real science and science fiction are changing our future. This companion book to the film is told as an accessible first-hand account about their dive into the steampunk community. Vintage Tomorrows address what steampunk means for today’s technological future, and features dozens of interviews from academics, artists, writers, and makers from the community. Right now, you can download an early release copy from their publisher’s website, but you can also get your hands on the published, hard copy final edition as part of this giveaway!

Still aren’t convinced about your need to own this book? Well, try taking a gander at the description and the documentary trailer below.

Book Description:

Can you imagine what today’s technology would have looked like in the Victorian Era? That’s the world Steampunk envisions: a mad-inventor collection of 21st Century-inspired contraptions powered by stream and driven by gears. It’s more than just a whimsical idea. In the past few years, the Steampunk genre has captivated makers, hackers, artists, designers, writers, and others throughout the world.

In this fascinating book, futurist Brian David Johnson and cultural historian James Carrott offer insights into what Steampunk’s alternative history says about our own world and its technological future. Interviews with experts such as William Gibson, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling, James Gleick, and Margaret Atwood explore how this vision of stylish craftsmen making fantastic and beautiful hand-tooled gadgets has become a cultural movement—and perhaps an important countercultural moment.

Steampunk is everywhere—as gadget prototypes at Maker Faire, novels and comic books, paintings and photography, sculptures, fashion design, and music. Discover how this elaborate view of a future that never existed can help us look forward.

We also have one free copy of Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style, edited by Shira Tarrant and Marjorie Jolles . This featured my academic debut with Jaymee Goh in our article about the meaning of steampunk fashion, but also contains TONS of great articles about the politics of fashion and its place in pop culture today.

Book Description:

Essays on the politics of everyday style.

Fashion Talks is a vibrant look at the politics of everyday style. Shira Tarrant and Marjorie Jolles bring together essays that cover topics such as lifestyle Lolitas, Hollywood baby bumps, haute couture hijab, gender fluidity, steampunk, and stripper shoes, and engage readers with accessible and thoughtful analyses of real-world issues. This collection explores whether style can shift the limiting boundaries of race, class, gender, and sexuality, while avoiding the traps with which it attempts to rein us in. Fashion Talks will appeal to cultural critics, industry insiders, mainstream readers, and academic experts who are curious about the role fashion plays in the struggles over identity, power, and the status quo.

“From indie brides to Islamic abayas to emo-hipster style, Fashion Talks speaks volumes about the sophistication of contemporary feminist scholarship. Its essays bring together a wide range of different, occasionally divergent perspectives on how style has been applied, critiqued, analyzed, and of course donned for political ends, in ways that encourage readers to truly reconsider the popular slogan ‘This is what a feminist looks like.’ This book is an invaluable source of new scholarship on the subject that will have tremendous appeal to those interested in gender studies, popular culture, and their sartorial expression.” — Maria Elena Buszek, author of Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture

Shira Tarrant is Associate Professor in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach. She is the author of Men and Feminism and When Sex Became Gender and the editor of Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power. Marjorie Jolles is Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Roosevelt University.

Comment on this post before midnight EST on February 19th in order to enter.

Since we’ve always been about international relations, it only makes sense that today’s giveaway comes from TeslaCon 4: The Congress of Steam! The premiere steampunk immersive convention in Madison, WI, is setting its sights globally for its Year Four. The propagator of this event, Lord Bobbins, has been inviting steampunk communities around the world to participate. One of the stated goals is to have a space where people from different communities can talk about what steampunk is like where they are from, and — perhaps — even come to some sort of fandom-wide agreement. That’s pretty ambitious, but whether you want to come for a rousing debate or some cultural exchange, I think that TeslaCon 4 has a lot of potential for being a convention to remember for years to come.

And Lord Bobbins is serious when he says he wants international folks to come — in fact, he’s giving away hundreds of weekend tickets for free to all international attendees. And Beyond Victoriana is lucky enough to grab a pair of tickets to give to one lucky winner. This is a $136 value and a helpful discount for anyone planning on booking a flight to come to the US this November (but anyone inside the 50 states has a chance of winning these too of course!).

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Artist James Ng has rocked the steampunk world with his Imperial Steamworks series, which envisions an alternate world where the Industrial Revolution began during the Qing Dynasty in China. His imaginative vision, dynamic use of color, and attention to detail has always blown me away, and now you have a chance to own your own print.

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The first giveaway this week comes from Button Me Up, who are offering a quality set of nine steampunk buttons. Because what says steam more distinctly than an octopus in a top hat and what screams punk fashion more than sticking random things on your safety-pinned striped vest or tucked into your bowler?

Their description:

“This set includes the following buttons: Mustache and monocle, a gentleman octopus, Sherlock Holmes, I Gear Steampunk, Got Googles?, powered by tea, gear, clockwork heart, and clockface.”

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aka Happy Lunar New Year! This year is the Black Water Snake, and I found this fantastic footage of a 50-foot long mechanical snake that slithered around CNES (International Consumer Electronics Show) last month. If this DIY cybernetic reptile doesn’t count as steampunk (or at least under the umbrella of mind-boggingly AWESOME), then I don’t know what does.

Aaaand, best wishes from Tết-E, our cardboard box robot!

Not only do we welcome in the new year, this February marks the 4th anniversary of Beyond Victoriana!

No, not really, that was in October (not that anyone noticed). I was too exhausted through work and real life crisis to handle a proper tribute to the 1,460 days (or 35,040 hours or 2,102, 400 minutes) that BV has been alive and kicking, but what better time to celebrate anniversaries than at the beginning of a new year?

And what better way to do it than by giving out a bunch of free stuff to my lovely, lovely readers?

This week, February 11 – 15, we’ll be offering opportunities for readers to grab some swag. Find out more info after the jump. EDIT: Also, a full listing of giveaway items will be tucked here too, updated daily, so check them out!

About Beyond Victoriana

The Nutshell ExplanationBeyond Victoriana is the oldest-running blog about multicultural steampunk and retro-futurism--that is, steampunk outside of a Western-dominant, Eurocentric framework. Founded in 2009, Beyond Victoriana focuses on non-Western cultures, underrepresented minorities in Western histories (Asian / Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, First Nation, Hispanic, black / African & other marginalized identities), and the cultural intersection between the West and the non-West.